Grasshopper Cookies

They look so innocent sitting there...don't be fooled, they are evil! Wickedly good.

I shouldn't make cookies. But I can't help myself.

Pumpkin Cookies

These are so good, if I do say so myself. This was a recipe I found and modified to make them more moist and cake like. Enjoy!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cream together: 1&1/2 sticks of butter (room temp); 1/2 cup Crisco butter flavor shortening; 1 Cup brown sugar; 1/2 cup organic sugar

Add in: 2 tsp. real vanilla; 2 eggs and 1 (15 oz) can of pumpkin puree

Mix well.

By hand stir in : 2&1/2 cups flour; 1 tsp. baking powder; 1/2 tsp. baking soda; 1/2 tsp. salt; 1 tsp. cinnamon; 1/2 tsp. each of ginger and nutmeg; 1/4 tsp. cloves

This batter is almost like a muffin batter. I used my cookie scoop and make sure to put parchment paper on the cookie sheet. 12 per tray bake for 12 minutes at 375. Remove when done to a cooling rack. 

For the icing: cream together 1 (8 oz. block cream cheese); 1/4 cup room temp. butter.; 2 tsp. vanilla; a pinch of salt and 2 cups powdered sugar

I put it in a piping bag and piped it onto the cookies. This recipe made about 62 with the cookie scoop I used. The icing didn't go that far the way I did it. It left about 12 without icing. I put fall leaves sprinkles on them. 

And then you add Pearl Dust...

And it changes everything!

Ball brand baby food jars

I love love love these little baby food Ball jars!! They are so handy for icing. Each on is 4 ounces and has a wide mouth and a plastic lid. So great for mixing and storing icing. I just know if I fill one with icing that I get about two of my small squeeze bottles filled from one jar. They come 4 in a package and cost about $5 at Walmart. Believe me I stocked up! 

Guess What! Another Wedding and a Party

That's right. My daughter, Jayme got engaged and their wedding is October 19 so I started making cookies for her special day.

They decided on Navy, Gold, Red and Mint. So I made 45 of these simple mint colored hearts, and 40 of these round gold sugared monograms.

Today I finished 47 of these gold wedding cake cookies.

Feels good to have all those in the freezer. I really like how the wedding cakes turned out. This was my original design and I just didn't like it. Glad I only tried 4... sometimes things seem good on paper or in my head but in actuality they aren't that great. I'm glad I tried again.

The weekend after the wedding we have our biggest family get together of the year. This year it will be 39 people. Such a fun time of eating and carving pumpkins and a hay ride.

Of course I make cookies for everyone. I sketched out this design from a cookie cutter that I have that is a pickup with a tree in it. So I trimmed the tree off and cut the bottom off the little pumpkin and made it a truck with a huge pumpkin in it. Took a bit of work but worth the end product.

So today I decided to do 10 of the 40 that I need to do.

In retrospect I am not sure I needed the dark icing in the wheel wells but it didn't take too much time or effort and if my tires didn't touch then it was covered. I am thrilled with the end result.

From design to completion a really fun cookie to make. Only 30 more to go. The next ones I won't have to mix colors and prepare icing though so they should go faster. These 10 took 2 hours. The cookie cutter is from Karen's Cookies. I learned by error that you can't use food markers, freeze the cookie and have it turn out ok. The color bleeds... So I will write on these after they are room temperature on the day I use them. I want to write on that white panel the event and date.  

These made for this event also and also purchased from Karen's Cookies. I just loved the silverware cutters!! Had to have them. I did these yesterday.

And finished off with Wilton pearl lustre spray to make them really shine.

They just make me smile! I think the next time I do them I will do the handle design wet on wet instead of the way I did these. It would be much faster and easier. That spray makes such a difference in the look of them. Fun products.

A Tiny Wedding Cake...

To sit on top of the cupcake stand.

Look at the second to the bottom record ( I made the cupcake stand out if old records) it was so hot outside the record melted! Fortunately I just took the stand apart and removed one level. 

They are so cute!